David Feldman - Great Britain & British Empire Tuesday, December 4, 2018, at 10:00 CET

Dear Collectors and Friends, It gives us great pleasure to present to you our latest GB & British Empire catalogue which features nearly 1’000 lots. Each year we do our utmost to bring together a specialised catalogue of GB & British Empire, and this year our efforts have been rewarded as we have been able to produce two specialised sales in 2018. As shown by our June sale, the market for British Empire continues to be strong. Demand was particularly obvious for the collections of Cyprus and Mauritius, both of which had been carefully collected over many, many years. In this upcoming auction we have two specialised collections of similar pedigree, which have been just as meticulously and passionately accumulated over the years. The first is the astonishing range of plate 11 penny blacks and penny reds. Normally in a sale we can be lucky to offer a couple of used singles; in this sale we have over 50 single lots and groups from the black and red printings, with covers, unusual and particularly fine cancellations, multiples and so on. Secondly, the «Koi» collection of the Bechuanalands was a particular joy to describe. Covering the full gamut from Stellaland, British Bechuanaland and the Protectorate all the way through to Queen Elizabeth II and Botswana, with a range of varieties, rarities, postal history and cancellations which make it such an appealing section of the catalogue. For the collectors and dealers in the UK, we will be holding a viewing of all the single lots and select group lots/collections at the Strand Palace Stamp Show at the Royal National Hotel in London on November 9th, from 9am to 2pm. Please contact us if you would like to make sure we are bringing the lots you would like to view. As usual, this sale will be conducted in Pounds Sterling, and bidders can bid by mail, email or through our website before the auction, or by phone, online or in the room in Geneva on the day. Finally, we’d like to thank all our vendors for showing their trust in us to present their collections in the best way possible to maximise the potential of their lifetime’s work through our philatelists’ skills in lotting, describing and estimating. And I hope you agree that the weekends and late nights put in to preparing the catalogue by our senior design Alex Porter and his assistant Gilles Lüthi has produced a catalogue worthy of displaying the stamps and covers in their best possible light. Geneva, October 2018 Ricky Verra Philatelist Introduction